08 Feb 2024

Youths have welcomed the 2023/24 National Budget proposals saying the expansionary budget promises to address most of their needs.

Speaking during the youth budget analysis with the Minister of Finance Ms Peggy Serame on Wednesday, the youths said while the budget could not address all prevailing challenges, they welcomed increased funding for sports, creatives and agriculture.

A 15-year-old former Nanogang Junior Secondary School student, Ms Aumakwe Aaron said young people therefore stand to benefit as they were the most hit by high levels of unemployment.

Ms Aaron welcomed the funding for green transition technology, saying she was impressed the country was addressing climate change challenges.

However, her major concern was funding for infrastructure developments saying although the Ministry of Education received the lion’s share of the budget, most of it catered for teachers’ salaries while they studied in dilapidated buildings.

Ms Aaron, who completed her Form 3 last year and awaiting placement to senior school, said there was a need for the curriculum to be changed especially at junior schools to make it relevant to the modern world.

She said the Ministry of Defence and Security should also be adequately funded to enable the country to fight against crime.

Ms Aaron called on the youths to take advantage of various government programmes to improve their lives.

Mr Thulane Mpete, the vice president of the University of Botswana Economic Society, said he was not surprised by the fiscal expansion given the low rate of economic growth experienced during National Development Plan (NDP) 11. However, he said he was concerned about the risk of inflation emanating from such a budget increase which could affect the purchasing power of citizens.

He appreciated the increase in infrastructure development and Research and Development (R&D) saying this would enable the country, to have policies which were guided by research.

Mr Mpete, who is a third-year student of Political Science and Economics at UB, welcomed the audit to be undertaken at the MoE saying the ministry had over the years received the largest budget but there was no return on investments given the poor academic results.

For her part, Ms Didintle Moreki,, an entrepreneur, said the current unemployment rate of 23.5 per cent was bound to increase due to Form 3 students who have failed their JC examinations and UB graduates who were still without jobs.

However, she welcomed the establishment of the Chema Chema Fund saying it would help close the gap between Youth Development Fund and CEDA. 

The Fund, she said, should be allocated P1 billion instead of P200 million to enable entrepreneurs to scale up their businesses.

She said the public health sector was in the ICU and called for an increase in funding for the Ministry of Health.

Mr Kealeboga Matale, Global Markets Sales Manager at Stanbic Bank, said Botswana would eventually be self-sufficient due to measures introduced by government to support the agricultural sector.

He said the government empowerment programmes were not hand-outs but meant for Batswana to improve their lives.

Mr Matale said Batswana needed to understand the budget and how it arrived at a deficit.

He also said audit at MoE was crucial saying the country needs to stand up against corruption.

Talking about the creative, he said, Botswana should be working on monetizing social media pages, something which comedian Motsetserepa said forced him to use a South African address.

Meanwhile, Ms Serame said the guidelines for Chema Chema were yet to be developed, adding that it would not be administered by CEDA or NDB as they want to expand other horizons.

Youths urged the minister to ensure it was easily accessible, with one calling for its decentralisation saying youths could not access various programmes because of the distances they had to travel. Ends